Government competence is required to speed up cargo clearance in ports – Victor Olerski
The competence of the RF Government is required to solve the issue of speeding up cargo clearance in seaports, PortNews IAA reporter cites RF Deputy Transport Minister Victor Olerski, as saying at the meeting dedicated to topical issues of cargo clearance in ports. The meetin held in St. Petersburg was attended by the representatives of the state controlling authorities (SCA), market players and public organizations. The Deputy Transport Minister is going to initiate holding of a separate governmental meeting of competent SCA on consideration of measures to speed up cargo clearance in seaports. This issue should be brought to a governmental level as it is outside the competence of any certain ministry.
According to Victor Olerski, one of the key measures to speed up cargo clearance in seaports is the unification of an electronic digital signature (EDS) making it possible to submit documents to SCA in electronic format. “EDS, which seems to be a trifle, will actually allow saving almost half of the time spent for cargo clearance,” Olerski is sure.
In the opinion of Ruslan Davydov, Deputy Head of the RF Federal Customs Service, a unified EDS accreditation center should be set up by the Ministry for Communications. At least, all SCA should have an opportunity to use each other’s EDS to relieve the market players from the necessity to effect EDS in all authorities, Ruslan Davydov noted.
Besides, Victor Olerski thinks it is reasonable to consider the possibility to introduce new terms for BL submission as well as to oblige the participants of foreign economic activities (FEA) be accredited for operation with “Granitsa”, remote data supply system of Rospotrebnadzor (Russian Agency for Health and Consumer Rights). This opportunity was provided by Rospotrebnadzor as early as in November 2012 but only 27 FEA participants of almost 10,000 enterprises within the area of the Baltic Customs responsibility have used it so far due to lack of awareness. Meanwhile, the “Granitsa” system saves time on trips to the office of the Authority.
Moreover, preliminary informing and declaring was also discussed at the meeting. The participants came to a conclusion that the business representatives are not yet ready for introduction of obligatory preliminary informing. It is also explained by the fact that containers are mainly delivered to Big Port St. Petersburg by short feeder lines therefore there is no time enough for execution of all necessary documents.
According to the statistics, clearance of a foreign container batch in Russian ports takes 4-5 days on the average which is similar to the ports of other Baltic states. “37 days for clearance in our ports is a myth, - Victor Olerski said. – This is only possible with a neglect of the business by the market players themselves.”
As it became clear at the meeting, it is sometimes profitable for the market players to keep containers in the port for several days as some terminals store containers for 10 days free of charge. Representatives of stevedoring companies say it s done to improve their attractiveness and competitiveness against the ports of the neighboring states.